Reply #21: It Is True, Sir, That If There Is No Demand For What Labor Produces, It Cannot Be Sold [View All]

[The Magistrate]

But that is not quite the same thing as stating it has no value. The thing is analogous to the distinction between mass and weight. An object has the same mass on the earth as on the moon, but an object weighs less on the moon than on the earth because of the different gravities pulling on it, and in space, where no gravity applies, it is weightless entirely, though it still has mass. Thus, a well-wrought knife is still an object of greater value, of greater immediate utility, than a pile of taconite pellets and charcoal containing amid their dross a wright of iron and carbon equal to that in the steel of the blade, and retains this superior quality regardless of whether, at some p;articular moment, a person wants to exchange money for the things.